Phillies Farm System Report: Williams is Red Hot
Lehigh Valley Ironpigs (5-1)
While the big league club has really struggled over the course of May, the Lehigh Valley AAA team has been the exact opposite. They are starting to become the powerhouse team we all expected them to be when Spring Training ended and the season began. Some of them have been so exciting over the last month that people are starting to beckon for their call-ups, namely Nick Williams.
While people have reason to be excited about the emergence of Dylan Cozens and Rhys Hoskins, Williams’ month of May has gotten progressively better. The last week has been ridiculous. The 23-year-old had a power eruption that led him to a sudden total of eight homers at the week’s end.
The IronPigs had offensive contributions from many different players this past week. A team would need a variety of players to produce in order to score 42 runs in six games. Besides Williams, J.P. Crawford has continued his slow ascent back to his level of expectation. He had two multi-hit games, another homer, and brought his average up to .191 after being below .100 at one point this season.
The Phillies will be looking for another arm to take the place of Zach Eflin after his struggles in the majors. They have two possible arms in Nick Pivetta and Ben Lively. Pivetta had an excellent start on Tuesday to improve to 4-0 with a 1.04 ERA at AAA. He went seven innings, allowing seven hits, one earned run, and striking out nine.
However, after he had issues with the Phils, my guess is Ben Lively will get the nod. He had two starts last week. The first was a six inning, five hit, no walk, nine K, and zero run effort. The second one was arguably better. Lively threw eight innings, five hits, an unearned run, walking two, and striking out seven.
At this point, it would benefit the Phillies to allow any and all arms to audition in what appears to be the beginning of a disastrous season.
Reading Fightins’ (0-7)
The AA Fightins’ had a week similar to the month the Phillies have been having. Going 0-7 is not something I expected from a team with the type of offense the Reading team has. However, they are front-loaded offensively, so if they are not all hitting 1-4, then there could be issues winning games.
The only real offensive threat they had this week was Scott Kingery, who put together four (yes four) multi-hit games. He also hit homer numbers 12, 13, 14, and 15 last week. It has been unbelievable watching how Kingery continues to progress and while many believe his promotion is coming soon, I can see the Phils holding out for another couple of months before sending him to Lehigh Valley.
On the pitching side of things, nothing good comes from a week when the team loses every single game. However, if there were a bright spot, it would be Tyler Viza’s start on Friday. He went six innings, allowing three hits, two runs (neither one earned), walked no one, and struck out seven.
Austin Davis, the arm I have become obsessed with in the Reading pen, has continued on an upward trend. Davis threw three innings last week, striking out two, allowing four hits, and one run. It will be interesting to see how they decide to move with Davis, considering the team is in need of impact bullpen arms.
Reading will look to get back on the right track this week.
Clearwater Threshers (3-4)
The name to continue watching at Clearwater is still Cornelius Randolph. He actually put together a semi-decent week that opened my eyes a bit more. He had two multi-hit games this week and brought his average above .200 for the first time this season.
Zach Coppola and Deivi Grullon continued to perform pretty well early on in the 2017 campaign. I am still not high on Coppola because of how many outfielders there are in front of him. However, Grullon is an unusual name at the catcher position. He is incredibly strong defensively and his .273 average and recent fourth homer provide the Phils with, at the very least, a trade chip moving forward.
There were really no exciting pitching performances to speak of last week. The closest Clearwater came to one was the promising start from Alberto Tirado. The only remaining half of the return on the Ben Revere trade had a strong start, tossing 5.2 innings, allowing only one run on eight hits and two walks. He struck out five and improved his ERA to a still unimpressive 5.38 for the season.
Clearwater Threshers (5-3)
Finally, the Threshers have been a team with a few hitting prospects off to solid starts that had started to fall and a bunch of very promising arms. It was an exciting week for a handful of those players.
As always, I like to start with the one most people care about, Mickey Moniak. The first overall pick last season hit his first professional homer last week on his way to a stretch that brought his average back up to .288 after some recent struggles. He did come out of the first game of a double-header on Friday and did not play in the second game or Saturday’s game.
While Moniak is not setting the world on fire early on in his career, he is doing a good enough job at this point in his short career. Daniel Brito continued to get back on the right path offensively last week. He did end the week with a 2-5 output, scoring two runs.
On the pitching end of things, the Threshers continue to provide the Phillies with hope in the distant future. Nick Fanti, Jojo Romero, and Ranger Suarez all had tremendous starts of six or more innings. Suarez’s was easily the best, going 7.2 innings allowing four hits, a walk, and no runs. He struck out ten.
Fanti and Romero combined to go 12.2, surrendering ten hits, four total walks, three earned runs, and 14 Ks.
I have been paying attention to Trevor Bettancourt in Lakewood’s bullpen and he has been very strong so far this season. Just last Sunday, he was entrusted with three innings out of the pen. With those innings, the 22-year-old struck out five batters and gave up no runs to improve his ERA to an impressive 0.60 early in his professional career.
Next: Phillies Considering Demoting Franco
The UC Santa Barbara grad will be another arm to keep a close eye on in the system. If he continues to pitch this way, the organization could look to fast-track him to help the bullpen when they are ready to compete again.